THE GERMAN Bundestag “sent a signal to Ireland” yesterday after backing by a large majority revised laws to allow ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.
In a special sitting of the lower house of parliament, 446 of 495 MPs voted in favour of the laws that give the German parliament greater say in the country’s EU affairs. “Germany will retain its pro-European engagement and continue to be the motor of the European Union,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU), ahead of the vote.
Gunther Krichbaum, CDU parliamentary spokesman on European affairs, called the vote a “signal to Ireland but also to Poland and the Czech Republic” – countries which, like Germany, have yet to ratify the treaty.
The 46 MPs from the ex-communist Left Party voted against the laws which face a final vote in the Bundesrat on September 18th.
The parliamentary re-vote was prompted by court challenges to the Lisbon Treaty’s constitutionality. In June, judges from the constitutional court in Karlsruhe dismissed the challenges to the treaty itself, but upheld complaints about accompanying laws that regulate the role of the German parliament in EU affairs.
After weeks of hasty redrafting, a four-Bill package was passed yesterday that, in future, obliges the federal government to seek parliamentary approval for the shifting of competences to Brussels.
Under the revised Lisbon Treaty laws, Berlin is obliged to inform parliament of its position ahead of EU summits – in particular on foreign, security and defence issues – and explain afterwards if and why the end result deviated from the agreed position.
In addition, the new laws require Bundestag approval to start EU accession talks and talks to amend EU treaties.
The process of getting the Lisbon Treaty on to Germany’s statute books before the September 27th general election was slowed down by demands for even greater parliamentary rights from the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU. It presented a 14-point catalogue of demands and, though only five were implemented in full, party officials said they could live with the compromise.
Thomas Silberhorn, CSU Europe spokesman, said the revised laws would help integrate European politics into domestic German debate. Renewed complaints to the Karlsruhe court cannot be entirely ruled out, but are considered unlikely.
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